Results for "Los Angeles"

Mark Winkler

Mark Winkler is a platinum award winning singer/lyricist who has had over 200 of his songs recorded and/or sung by such artists as Dianne Reeves, Randy Crawford, Liza Minnelli, Bob Dorough, Jackie Ryan, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Lea Di Lauria and Britain’s Claire Martin. He also has charted high on the Jazz Week charts with his last 4 vocal releases. He was also included as a 2014 ”Rising Star” Male Jazz Vocalist in Downbeat Magazine.

He will be releasing his new CD “Jazz and Other Four Letter Words in August 2015. After his last two recordings that were tributes to Laura Nyro and the musicians of the 50s West Coast Sound, this CD once again finds Mark mixing his own originals with songs by the likes of Paul Simon, Dave Frishberg and Bob Dorough and Rodgers and Hart. He is once again joined on this recording by Cheryl Bentyne for two songs, the duo released the highly regarded ‘West Cost Cool” CD in 2013. For his new project, he has an all-star cast of musicians headed by John Clayton, Jeff Hamilton, Larry Koonse, Jamieson Trotter , Pat Kelley, Mike Shapiro, Dan Lutz and Bob Sheppard.

Anthony Wilson

Born: May 9, 1968

Anthony Wilson is a guitarist and composer known for a nuanced body of work that moves fluidly across genres. Wilson has long been curious about blurring borders and finding the place where where style and possibility intersect. Wilson’s first recording— Anthony Wilson (1997) — featured a nine-piece “little big band” and garnered a Grammy nomination for Best Large Ensemble Jazz Recording. It was followed by Goat Hill Junket (1998), and Adult Themes (2000). His fourth recording with the nonet, Power of Nine (2006) was included in the New Yorker’s roundup of that year’s top-ten jazz albums

Steve Tyrell

Born: December 19, 1944

Grammy Award-winning vocalist Steve Tyrell is truly a renaissance man. In his 4 decades in the music business he has achieved great success as an artist, producer, songwriter, music supervisor and performer. He is a Grammy winning producer and a two time Emmy nominee. His productions have won numerous Grammys and have been nominated for Academy and Golden Globe Awards as well. With his breakthrough performances in “Father of the Bride” and “Father of the Bride II,” Steve Tyrell reinvented and re-popularized classic pop standards for a modern audience. With the grit and soul of a lifetime producing hits for artists ranging from Linda Rondstadt & Diana Ross to 2005’s Grammy-winner Rod Stewart (“Stardust…Vol

Lee Ritenour

Born: January 11, 1952

For Lee Ritenour, there aren’t many ‘firsts’ left to achieve. During his dazzling five-decade career, the fabled LA guitarist has taken his music to the outer limits, alighting on every genre and occupying every position in the rock ‘n’ roll firmament. He’s been an enfant terrible of ’70s fusion, a crossover star of the ’80s pop chart, an honorary exponent of Brazilian jazz, and the fingers behind ’90s supergroup, Fourplay. Ritenour’s accolades include: 45 albums, Grammy award winner, plus 16 Grammy nominations, Alumnus of the year at USC, Los Angeles’ Jazz Society Honoree (2019), plus thousands of sessions with legends such as Frank Sinatra, Pink Floyd, B.B. King, Tony Bennett, among others.

Vince Mendoza

Born: November 17, 1961

8 Time Grammy award winning composer-arranger Vince Mendoza has been at the forefront of the jazz and contemporary music scene as a composer, conductor and recording artist for the last 30 years. He has written scores of compositions and arrangements for big band, chamber and symphonic settings while his jazz composing credits read like a “who's who” of the best modern instrumentalists and singers in the world today.  

Mendoza's arranging has appeared on many critically acclaimed projects that include dozens of albums with song writing legends and vocalists such as Björk, Gregory Porter, Chaka Khan, Elvis Costello, Alejandro Sanz, Al Jarreau, Diana Krall, Melody Gardot, Sting and Joni Mitchell.  He has 8 Grammy awards and 38 nominations.

Big Jay McNeely

Born: April 29, 1927

Big Jay McNeely brought the tenor sax to prominence in the golden age of R&B, known as the “King of the Honkers,” for his wild style and outrageous showmanship.. Tenor saxophonist Cecil "Big Jay" McNeely was born in Watts, California, on April 29, 1927, he formed his own band with jazz legends Sonny Criss (alto sax) and Hampton Hawes (piano) while still in high school. But in late 1948, when he was asked to record for Savoy Records, he abandoned jazz for something more raucous and struck paydirt when his second release, a honked-up instrumental called "Deacon's Hop," went to #1 on the national R&B charts in February 1949

Azar Lawrence

Born: November 3, 1952

Azar Lawrence led a very musical childhood and began playing drums at the age of five and moved onto violin and piano under the direction of his mother Ima Lawrence. Ima, a gifted musician and teacher from whom Azar received his acute flair for all things music has shaped many successful musicians. Azar began playing with the USC JR Orchestra at the age of five. He played violin until the age of 8. He performed vocals accompanied by his mother during elementary school where she taught sixth grade and music At age eleven he began hearing a different musical voice. He was an accomplished pianist, violinist and vocalist in his own right at the time. He thought it was time to learn viola

Julie Kelly

Born: October 28, 1947

The late, respected jazz critic Leonard Feather once said of jazz singer Julie Kelly, "Julie Kelly radiates a sense of joy and spontaneity. Listening to her, you are reminded that jazz singing is still alive and well!" Feather's successor at the Los Angeles Times, the veteran critic Don Heckman, referred to Kelly as having, "one of the finest vocal jazz instruments of the '90's". Born in Oakland, California, Kelly grew up absorbing herself in gospel, blues and jazz in addition to pop and classical music. "When I was 13," she remembers, "I was listening to Thelonius Monk, John Coltrane, Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie, as well as Dave Brubeck, and those wonderful albums with Miles Davis and Gil Evans

Roger Kellaway

Born: November 1, 1939

Roger Kellaway’s discography runs to more than two hundred and fifty albums. He’s worked with everyone from Ellington to Elvis, Dizzy Gillespie to Yo-Yo Ma, Joni Mitchell to Mancini and Quincy Jones to Michael Tilson Thomas. Kellaway is not only a major pianist, he is a composer of protean ability, writing in the music fields of jazz, classical and “pop”, also scoring for films and television. His acclaimed “Cello Quartet” albums are described by some as “crossover”, “chamber jazz” and by others as the beginning of “New Age” music. They were the first in an eclectic array of projects beginning in the 1960’s

Toni Jannotta

Toni Jannotta, a native of Los Angeles, has been performing locally and abroad for the past 30+ years. She has three vocal jazz CD's ("Just Jazz," "Jazz at the Ranch," and "Is It Magic?"), one documentary film ("Voices of the Homeless"), and her original children's book with accompanying jazz suite with storytelling, ("My Little Heart, Ruthie") in 2017.

Her CDs are produced and recorded under her label, Aerie Records, with "Just Jazz" and "Jazz at the Ranch" distributed worldwide by TCB Music, The Montreux Jazz Label, in Montreux, Switzerland. "Is It Magic?" and "My Little Heart, Ruthie" can be found on the web via CD Baby. "My Little Heart, Ruthie" is also sold as a hard copy picture book via Book Baby, or for one-stop shopping on Amazon. Her most recent original songs, "Gypsy Girl," and "How've You Been?" can be found on all streaming platforms.